During the Pro Football Hall of Fame game against the Arizona Cardinals, second-year wide receiver Jimmy Horn Jr. led the Carolina Panthers in both catches and receiving yards, bringing in four passes for 44 yards.
The 2025 sixth-round pick also added a 17-yard catch-and-run after a pass from undrafted rookie quarterback Haynes King, juking a defender in the open field.Â
Horn's speed was never the question. What he showed Thursday night was everything around it.
Jimmy Horn Jr. staked a strong claim in Carolina Panthers' preseason opener
Balance through contact, patience setting up his cuts, the burst to turn a short throw into a chunk gain. Small-framed receivers get bounced off their route by press coverage all the time. Horn shrugged off some tacklers instead.
And that was enough to bolster his chances of making the 53-man roster once again.
Back in July, Horn looked like the odd man out.Â
Carolina's top four receivers — Tetairoa McMillan, Jalen Coker, Chris Brazzell II and Xavier Legette — were never in danger. David Moore's special teams value all but locked up a fifth spot. That left Horn scrapping with John Metchie III, and.Brycen Tremayne what might have been a single opening.
Metchie came in with more NFL snaps under his belt. Tremayne brought special teams chops of his own. Horn, on the other hand, brought 11 catches and 108 receiving yards from a rookie season where he barely got on the field, just 19 total touches across 13 games.
Head coach Dave Canales and his staff have had Horn working with the return specialists throughout camp so far. A Day 3 receiver without an every-down role needs a second job to survive final cuts, and kick returns are exactly the kind of job that keeps a roster spot warm.
Horn flashed that same explosiveness on returns in Thursday's game, the same juice that turned a short pass into 17 yards downfield. If he keeps stacking those kinds of plays, special teams stops being a fallback and starts being the reason he makes the 53.
Now Carolina isn't going to hand Horn a spot just because of one strong exhibition. But roster bubbles get decided by moments like this one, and the Colorado product just gave the coaching staff a reason to keep watching.
If Horn keeps playing like this throughout the rest of camp and the preseason, the Panthers might have stumbled onto a receiver worth a real role, not just a camp body fighting for scraps.
Add us as a preferred source on Google